I’ve been struggling to decide what to write this about. It’s my last Tower story ever, so it has to be perfect. The all-nighters editing, late-night deadlines, scrambling to find sources and coming up with angles to put on the preplan, and this is the very last one. So it HAS to be perfect. Could you imagine if Mariano Rivera gave up a home run during his last save attempt, or if John Lennon lost his voice before the Beatles’ last concert? Nope. They were perfect, and this column has to be too.
I wrote a graduation speech I was proud of that I won’t get to perform, so I thought about just publishing it. But the jokes wouldn’t be as funny on paper, so that’s not perfect. Maybe a farewell address, but I can do that in the letter from the editor. Not perfect. Oooh, I could make this about all the things I would do if I were president, but no one wants to hear me talk about politics more than I already do, so scratch that idea. There were some really nicely written senior columns last year about reflection and advice, so I could just do that and make it sound really pretty. But my advice will leave you with four hours of sleep and trying to write at 2 a.m., so that probably isn’t perfect either. Maybe I’m just a Red Bull away from the perfect idea.
Why don’t I just talk about what I love? I love my close friends, disco, the constitution, flashy suits, taking my sister out, standup comedy, philosophy, dreaming, Curtis Sliwa, talking and writing run-on sentences like these. There are a dozen ideas right there. But I don’t think any of them are perfect, and this column has to be perfect.
What tone do I want my column to have? Well, it has to be funny, but school-appropriate. It should be lighthearted, but still make Jude cry. It should be personal, but not so much that I’ll regret it. It should make me sound fun, but not stupid, because there’s nothing I hate more than looking stupid. Except when I’m dancing. But I’m too fantastic a dancer to look stupid. Well, shoot, now I sound cocky, which I also hate. Maybe I’ll just have AI write something perfect for me (kidding, Mrs. Singer).
Should I just make it about me? No, because I wasn’t a perfect NHS president, my signature is too sloppy. I wasn’t a perfect baseball player, even though my ERA was. I wasn’t a perfect student, even if I was pretty damn close. I certainly wasn’t a perfect editor, but at least I made sure that seventh hour was always a better class than sixth hour. I did, however, manage to pick the perfect homecoming hat. I like my glasses too.
I’m running out of words and still don’t have the perfect idea, so I’ll end with being sentimental and cliché, like I probably should’ve just started with. I’m going to miss this place a lot. Here, I learned to thrive off failure, recognize what’s important and what’s not, put others before myself, make a classroom a home and how to use a semicolon. My time at South was far from perfect, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t have regrets or didn’t make mistakes, but I am forever blessed to have spent four years with the people here. I have so much more to say, but I’m already 100 words over the limit, so I’ll finish with as imperfect an ending as possible: thank you, truly, for everything.
